Damnation: Ashes Remain
by The Lady Frost
Summary: "He's not the boogeyman...he's the guy you call to KILL the f-ing boogeyman."
1. Ashes1

**Damnation: **

**Ashes Remain**

* * *

"_And I looked, and **behold a pale horse**: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." -**Revelations 6:2-8**_

* * *

"_Only a fool would underestimate a man with nothing to lose."―** Lance Conrad, The Price of Nobility**_

* * *

His hands were shaking.

Trembling.

The fingernails, crusty with dried blood, were cracked and jagged. The hand he held out before him trembled...until he curled it into a fist. There was a quiet strength found in the symbol of power that remained.

Rage shivered.

It lingered.

Although the bodies that littered the small house were long dead.

In a pool of blood, in a spill of broken wood, the first was on its belly. It was impossible to know if it had been male or female - there wasn't enough left of the face to tell.

The second lay half curled over the bathtub, hunched against the chipped and peeling porcelain. The curtain was half torn from the wall where it had fallen - blown back and way by a heavy round to the chest. The neck was brutally twisted, deformed, and resting on the opposite shoulder. The sightless eyes of the fallen stared at the far wall, mired in a spill of brain matter and blood. The skull was bashed in, offering a view of cerebral edema and crumpled bone.

The hallway collected the remnants of the last. The head was shoved through the rotting, sagging, shattered drywall; the sheetrock having fallen in a dusting of white and chunks around the filthy flannel shirt had worn. This one wasn't long dead - it was still twitching in the aftershocks of death. The head had caved in upon itself like a broken egg.

His fingers lowered, they strummed a few chords on the flawless guitar in his filthy lap. The engraving at the strap told the story of the strength of its purpose: Excalibur - the sword of heroes. A trickle of blood spilled down the side of his face, a smooth red line of survival. The music filled the quiet cool air, poignant, haunting and heralding his victory over his enemies.

_Through the Valley*_ filled the silent house - punctuated by the call of a bird somewhere in the waiting wilderness.

_I walk through the valley of the shadow of death_

_And I'll fear no evil because I'm blind to it all_

_And my mind and my gun they comfort me_

_Because I know I'll kill my enemies when they come_

He strummed, almost lazily now, eyes closed and feeling it. The cigarette between his lips was taken away to flick the ashes on the floor.

He heard the footsteps as they moved through the house.

Beside him, on the bed, his gun waited beside the bloodied comrade of a ball-peen hammer.

_Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life_

_And I will dwell on this earth forevermore_

_Still I walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul_

_But I can't walk on the path of the right because I'm wrong_

The sound of approach filled his ears. The song continued, undaunted, as his courage was. He was trembling...but he was no longer afraid.

The doorway darkened. But it wasn't an enemy.

Not this time...not yet.

Not today.

_Well I came upon a man at the top of a hill_

_Called himself the savior of the human race_

_Said he come to save the world from destruction and pain_

_But I said how can you save the world from itself_

The chords of music spilled around them, a cocoon of homage to the fallen.

A song of survival. A symphony of revenge.

A dare to those who'd come against him.

_'Cause I walk through the valley of the shadow of death_

_And I'll fear no evil 'cause I'm blind_

_And I walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul_

_But I know when I die my soul is damned_

His eyes opened. The filthy window beside him was cracked and crumbling. It was blackened from gunpowder and splattered in blood.

The house was ripe with death.

But his determination was born anew. Arisen.

As he was, to seek his vengeance.

He spoke, low and trembling with rage. As his hand had. As his soul did, at the promise of redemption.

Into his ear, the soft voice wondered, "...what have you done? What have _you done?" _The horror was thick enough to walk on. He was numb to it. The rage was finite and flourishing.

"...I'm going to kill every last one of them."

They shared a long silence. The condemning voice in his ear. The filthy man on the bed, clutching his sword of justice - his instrument of revenge. Excalibur.

The soft voice intoned, "...hurry. You're running out of daylight."

"I have what I need. More than. But them? They're dead where they stand."

The final chords of the song filled the quiet house. A bond for them. A chorus of their vengeance.

_I walk through the valley of the shadow of death_

_And I'll fear no evil because I'm blind to it all_

_And my mind and my gun they comfort me_

_Because I know I'll kill my enemies when they come_

* * *

**_A/N:_**

_*Through the Valley is the song Ellie is playing in the Last of Us trailer. Feel familiar? It is. It's a modified version of a former prologue. A while back, I started an AU version of RE mixed with TLOU. I got bored and let that drop, but this scene? It immediately jumped back at me when I started this new one. I'm thinking this guy feels like about ten chapters, maybe less if I get where I want fast enough._

_What we need to know here? Hell Hath No Fury. If you want the love child of John Wick and Taken mixed with bioterror and betrayal? This is your cup of tea right here._


	2. Ashes2

**Damnation:**

**Ashes Remain**

* * *

"_And I looked, and **behold a pale horse**: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." -**Revelations 6:2-8**_

* * *

"_Only a fool would underestimate a man with nothing to lose."―** Lance Conrad, The Price of Nobility**_

* * *

**Chapter 1: Daddy's Little Girl**

* * *

**Three Weeks Prior**

* * *

The dreary light from the rainy day filtered against the pristine glass to make shadows on the bed with the puffy white comforter. The heavy blanket shifted, rolling in a motion that told the tale of bodies beneath it in movement. The house was mostly glass and good wood carved by hand and taken from the forests of Northern California to make a sanctuary for a soldier who'd long ago learned the lesson of leaving everything you loved behind.

But here...here...was the one place that he kept coming back to. It was _his...a_nd it was home.

The comforter rolled, shifted, and was finally thrown back like one might divest themselves of a cumbersome coat to free their body. Her blonde hair cocooned around them, obscuring the smoky sunlight from finding his face beneath her. Curled around him, she straddled his body and was half curled over his torso with their hands interwoven above his head. Her hips rolled and lifted, her mouth dived to slide wetly against his as she groaned, "..._oh, god__..."_

He wasn't that, but he was half convinced the experience was holy.

When their hands released, she lifted her torso up and slid her hands down his thighs to brace herself. It arched her back, it made her sleek and incredible above him - her jutting breasts, her rolling hips, the muscled curve of her belly. His hand traced up the sweaty line of her torso and gripped the base of her throat.

She rode so hard down on him it echoed in the quiet house. When he felt her tighten, heard her keen and gasp, he rolled her while she came. Fast, she thought desperately, he was always so incredibly fast - in battle, in life, in bed. You could never find your purchase around him. He kept you shaken, searching, and desperate. The blankets spilled back beneath their surging bodies.

His hands twisted in her hair to turn her mouth up. Her hips thrust up to take him as his lunged down to destroy her. Fast. Faster. Harder. Her nails drove into his back and he was done.

He grunted and came in her while she whined a little and kissed him, pistoning his hips through his release like a madman. Her hands curved over his ass to hold him inside of her while they both trembled with it. The slick sweaty slide of their flesh stuck them together a little while they both came down.

His hands tilted her face back again so they could kiss slow and deep. When their mouths _separated,_ she hooked her feet around his ankles to hold on as she gasped, "..._fuuuuck..."_

Softly he laughed hoarsely as he spoke muffled against her neck, "...I think we just did that."

Her laughter tinkled in the gray dawn.

* * *

On his back, naked and incredible, he watched her dress after she'd showered. In a tiny white thong, she moved around his bedroom to assemble her clothes. The sheer thigh highs were dark and made her legs look ten miles long as she rolled one up her left leg. Feeling his eyes on her, she lifted her head to smile at him. The yards and yards of her long blonde hair made the perfect frame to the perfect picture.

Her breasts were full of tempting over her honed belly as she switched to her right leg. "Something on your mind, Mr. Kennedy?"

He grinned, rolling to his side to watch her. His fingers curled into his hair as he braced himself on one elbow. "Wondering when you're gonna move in."

Rolling her eyes, Jill Valentine shifted to pick up her bra where he'd thrown it over the desk near the far wall. "When you retire."

They both knew that was unlikely to happen, ever. So it was a running joke. Amused, he watched with some level of sadness as she slipped on the pretty lace bra and covered her wonderful tits. She clipped her stockings to the garter belt she wore and moved toward his closet to get one of her suits.

She had most of her clothes at his place, he was relatively sure of that, but she was still reluctant to live with him. He doubted she ever would. Their arrangement now suited them both to the ground. They came and went as they pleased and never expected anything from the other.

They both knew the other was faithful...although no one ever asked for that either.

Jill started buttoning herself into a crisp white collared shirt. "Don't you have somewhere to be today?"

Her question made him laugh again. "Why? You want me to go away?"

Jill winked at him in the long mirror. The backdrop of a rainy Seattle day made her pale skin glow. "Never, but I'm pretty sure today is important."

He furrowed his brow. She held his gaze in the mirror with her brows raised until he rolled onto his back with a curse, "...shiiiit. I forgot. I don't have to go right? It's not even her birthday really. It's just her party. Thrown by..._him."_

Jill laughed softly and shifted over to perch beside him on the bed in that tempting shirt she wore. "Hey...up here, hot stuff."

He opened his eyes to look at her. Breathtaking, she thought with a rush of it in her chest, those seafoam eyes of his. She scooped the shaggy dirty dishwater hair off his brow and grinned, "You can hate her stepdad all you want, that's your right. But it's not about you. She wants you there. Don't disappoint her."

With a sigh, he turned his face to kiss her wrist. "...shit...sixteen. _Sixteen. _I can't fucking believe it. I'm old right? Old."

Jill laughed and tucked her shirt into the pencil skirt she was putting on. "If you are, I am. So I vote no."

With a hefty sigh, he rolled out of the bed. She watched his ass as he moved toward the bathroom to shave. "...you could come with me, ya know."

Jill declined that, "No way. Ingrid and I don't get along on a good day. And I have three different meetings before lunch this morning, a flight to Singapore this evening, and two more meetings before I get to go to bed."

Blowing his lips in a raspberry of regret, Leon headed toward the shower. "Maybe I should go over there smelling like you just to get her goat."

Jill rolled her eyes but kinda liked the dirtiness of it as she told him, "Don't be petty...although that makes me kinda hot that you like the way I smell."

He poked his head out the door and told her, "I love the way you smell, kid. Come in here and I'll show you."

Tempted, she laughed as she picked up her suit jacket, "You devil, you're done making me late for things."

He pouted and told her, "...party pooper."

She heard him climb in the water. She finally poked her head into the huge bathroom and reminded him, "Don't forget about her gift, Leon."

Right. The gift. The most important part. He couldn't show up at a girl's sweet sixteen without a gift. He'd be ejected out of the huge mansion on his ass.

He heard her rustling around in his bedroom and called, "What would I do without you?"

She laughed and returned, "Find someone else to fuck on the rare occasions you're home."

Adoring her, he teased, "Maybe, but she wouldn't have your ass!"

The shower door made a whoosh as she opened it a little. Her blonde hair was bound up and professional now. She told him, "You're goddamn right about that. Now tell me goodbye, be good at the party, and don't pick a fight with her stepdad."

He gave her an eyes twinkling narrow look as he leaned over to kiss her. As he leaned back, he told her, "I won't if he doesn't."

Laughing, she slid the door closed and warned him, "It won't go well for you! Be a good boy."

He was still smiling as he heard her leave his bedroom.

She was one of the only two anchors in his universe that kept him from floating away. His daughter was the other. He'd struggled at first with striking a balance between bad ass agent and bad ass dad. The cost of being the best in the business had been his marriage.

But it had never been his kid.

Fresh faced and eager, he'd met Ingrid Hunnigan just before his first real mission to South America. She'd been beautiful, driven, and professional. He'd been arrogant, driven, and determined. He'd won her over after three dates.

He'd married her after five.

Their first year together had been nothing but whirlwind romance and fucking in quiet corners while they straddled life and living under the eye of the government. She'd been his best friend, his confidant, and the only person who understood him. When Moira had come along, she'd been unexpected.

Young, scared, they'd decided it was still the best thing that had ever happened to them.

By the time she was three, their marriage had dwindled to frequent arguments and angry fucking in quiet corners under the constantly intrusive eye of the government. He was never home for more than a handful of weeks before he was sent off again. He spent most of his time with Moira when he was home.

Ingrid, unfairly, fell to the wayside as the last of his priorities.

He'd never been a good husband to her.

He could admit that, now, all these years later. She'd deserved better. She'd loved him so hard, so completely - and he'd been so enamored of her. Then as fast as they'd fallen, they'd burnt each other up trying to keep it alive.

When Moira was five, they'd sent him to Spain to find Ashley Graham.

By then, Ingrid was reduced to being called Hunnigan. They were on a last name basis. She'd never taken his anyway when they'd married. They'd worked together stiffly, but well. He'd tried to tease her and restore some of the fun they'd once shared so completely together...but he'd started to suspect she was done with him. Tired of worrying and waiting and wanting - and having him fail her at every turn.

He'd nearly died in Spain and she'd cried at his bedside in a way that made him afraid, really afraid, for the first time since they'd met. She didn't look at him again the same after that. It was one of those times you know your marriage is on life support.

Moira was his best friend, his baby, his pal. She learned how to sneak and play cards and ride horses. He taught her to do backflips on a trampoline and powerslide under the kitchen table. She could handle a knife by her sixth birthday and he made sure she knew how to protect herself with it.

A baby or not, she was still his world. He'd be damned if he'd let her be at risk. Hunnigan resented him for teaching her things like that, but he'd rather have her ire than risk Moira's life. It was that simple.

After Harvardville, he'd come limping from what was left of the lab to find Ingrid waiting for him. Without much of a word, she'd given him back his ring. Angry, he'd demanded to know why she was betraying him, why she was giving up on him. And she'd told him, "It's not giving up, Leon. It's just walking away. I can't bury you. I can't. Not as your wife. Not anymore. You need someone who won't mourn you when you die. Because you will. You'll die. The hero always dies."

She'd tried. She'd given it one more shot when he'd begged her to. They'd done counseling for a few months and she'd finally laid down the law: Downgrade his job to a desk. Enter FOS and become a handler. Give up being an agent, and she'd stay.

He was never made for a desk. He'd told her that almost coldly. She'd put his shit on the curb the same night.

His job had cost him his marriage.

After the divorce, he'd spent any time he had with Moira. He took smaller missions, shorter ones, simpler ones. He never went too far or risked too much. They never told her what he did. She knew only that he worked for the government. It was never told to her that he was eyeball deep in bioterror and blood.

It was harder than it should have been to teach Moira to shoot. She was reluctant around guns, talking about the statistics of handgun deaths and accidents. He made sure she understood the statistics were about people who didn't know how to handle one.

She didn't like it, but she learned.

When she was twelve, he'd taken her to a Department of Security Operations family fun day. Swimming and hotdogs and barbecues fired up on flaming meat. The American summer past time.

Two things had happened that day to rock his world-

He'd gotten his first glimpse of Hunnigan with her new lover - Derek Simmons, the National Security Advisor.

And he'd come across the very blonde Jill Valentine for the first time since her release from rehabilitation. Somehow the blonde suited her. Her face was still flawlessly beautiful. They'd struck up a conversation like they were old friends, which they were...in a way.

Moira had found him to tell him she had something horrible happen. She'd leaned close and whispered, desperately, "I'm bleeding!"

Concerned, he'd held her arms to flick his eyes all over her looking for wounds. "...where?"

She'd flushed pink and covered her face. Jill had saved his life, stepping in to say, "I got her. Come with me, sweetheart, we'll take care of it."

And he'd known. His baby girl was no longer a baby. After that, he'd had to purchase tampons along with his bottle of Jack Daniels. Being a dad meant not being embarassed to buy stuff for your daughter when she was on her period.

Three months later, he'd run security at his ex-wife's wedding. That's right, he'd been tasked by Simmons to handle security while the weasley little shit married Leon's former spouse. It was so passive aggressively pathetic that it wasn't even worth getting upset over.

Although he had.

He'd done his damn job, but he'd been a little drunk the whole time. He'd toasted Ingrid's happiness with a bitterness that was nearly choking. He'd kept a happy face for his daughter, but he'd gone home feeling like a broken mess.

The loneliness had been palpable. People laughing and dancing and so happy. And him...alone. The victim of his own choices. A guy who'd picked the fight over his life. He'd lost everything but Moira to it at that point.

Would he lose her next to Derek Simmons?

He'd stood in the shadows and watched that squirrely bastard dance with his daughter and his wife and felt...numb.

As he'd found his way in a cab, he'd emerged from it to find Jill Valentine leaning against the column of his front porch to avoid the rain. She'd been wearing a woman's suit with ear piece dangling in on her neck. It was the moment he'd realized she'd been there on the security team the whole day.

He'd shrugged, laughing darkly, "My wife got married to a sniveling turd today."

And she'd returned, "I heard. You wanna go upstairs and fuck me until you forget her?"

He'd never wanted anything more.

He'd fucked her standing barely inside the door against the glass wall. They'd drank and fucked and forgot. She was good for him, because of all the women in the world - she was just as scary and damaged as he was.

She didn't want a damn thing from him but his dick. It made life easy.

He'd watched his daughter flourish in the light of Hunnigan's happy marriage. She'd gone from a skinny little pre-teen to a beautiful girl on the verge of womanhood. The idiot Simmons had somehow been good for her. He'd given her the happy home life she'd always sort of craved.

Each time he came back from a mission, he'd spend a week or two on a vacation with his daughter. After about of year of that, she'd finally asked him, "Daddy...don't you have anybody in your life? I don't want you to be alone."

She was so concerned he was lonely. He was never lonely when she was with him. He might have been when she left, but for Jill. So he'd told her. He'd told her about Jill. Not the fuck buddies, no, he'd never corrupt his baby that way. But the friendship.

She'd asked if Jill could come with them sometime. He'd asked. Jill had accepted without any real ripple in the placid sea of their relationship. Moira had remembered her happily from that momentous day of her first period. They'd clicked.

And so it began that Jill joined them when she could on their trips. It was never any pressure. It was never any demands. It was just comfort.

The night before Moira's party, Jill had come over with a bag full of fixings to make him spaghetti - and a fluffy white puppy.

He'd stared at her and finally asked, "...you get a dog?"

Amused, Jill had handed him the puppy and passed by him into the house, "Nope. You did, for your daughter."

Admittedly, the ugly little fluff ball was a good way to beat Simmons at his own game. Moira was an animal lover in her bones. She'd used her spare time to join the coalition for animal rights. She'd joined her friends on a march in the parade for cruelty to animal awareness. She was a good girl.

She'd love the damn dog.

However, he'd been forced to keep the thing all night. It had big dopey ears and blinking blue eyes. Jill told him it was a malamute, whatever the hell that was. He figured it did kinda look like the wolf he'd saved in Spain.

Now he was carrying the fluffball under his arm as he approached the stupid McMansion that Simmons lived in. It looked like something out of Kardashian episode. It was ridiculously over the top.

A pinched faced butler let him into the backyard via a snooty little gate.

Ingrid glanced over to find him standing there among all her rich snobby friends and she smiled woodenly. In fairness, he did stand out. He was wearing a simple blue fleece deconstructed Diesel jeans in a vintage wash. The boots on his feet were scuffed and well worn.

He was a sore thumb among diamond studded fingers.

Hunnigan moved toward him and shook her head, muttering, "You did this to spite me."

He rolled his eyes, "Nice to see you too, Ing. You look lovely."

She did. A red dress with a gauzy sheer jacket. Her long hair was in curls around her flawless copper face.

Hunnigan gave him a droll stare, "You have more designer shit in that closet of yours than most other man at this party. And _this _is what you show up in? Why? To needle Derek?"

Ugh. Derek. Leon snorted, "He's already using that needle on you plenty, darlin. How's he like nailing my sloppy seconds anyway? I should find him and ask."

Hunnigan poked a finger into his chest and hissed, "Don't. You hear me? This is Moira's day. Don't you spoil it for her."

He gave her a bland return look, "I won't. You know me better than that."

She shook her head, "I don't know you at all." She turned with a grin as Derek Simmons came over to join them, "Look what Leon brought!"

Simmons gave him a narrow look, "...you bring a mutt to my house, Kennedy?"

Without missing a beat, Leon returned, "Dogs like packs I heard, Simmons. I was just bringing you a companion."

Quietly, Hunnigan warned, "Put your dicks back in your pants, _please. _I will murder you both if you ruin this for her."

They both had smiles on their faces that were more wolfish than friendly. Finally, Leon remarked, "Thanks for inviting."

Begrudgingly, Simmons replied, "Thanks for coming."

With relief, Hunnigan muttered, "There. That wasn't so hard, was it?"

They both kept smiling woodenly at each other. Finally, breaking the tension, Moira's voice sounded above the crowd, "Oh my _gawd! __What did you do!?"_

She came racing at him. Leon caught her against him with his free hand and she grabbed for the fluffy puppy with a high pitched laugh of delight. It licked and laved her with affection as tears popped in her eyes and she cried, "Oh my god, he's _perfect!"_

Moira dropped to the grass to play with him. The puppy circled and barked and fake growled at her as she laughed with pure joy. Her short cap of dark hair reflected the muted sunlight. It was a soggy day for a party, but she wasn't worried about the mud as she played in it with that little puffball.

Her eyes turned up with delight as she told him, "Thank you, Daddy." She smiled at him with those whiskey and water eyes of her above his nose and he just...couldn't stay irritated at anything anymore. He crouched in the grass to let the puppy lick him and pressed a kiss to her temple."

"Happy birthday, baby."

Curious, she wondered, "Where's Jill?"

Hunnigan rolled her eyes as he answered, "She had work, but you can thank her for this mutt. She appears to know exactly what you want."

Sighing with happiness, Moira told him, "Don't sell yourself short, Dad. You do alright."

Leon winked at her. The party was suddenly aflutter with excitement. He turned his attention to find a sleek red Maserati Spyder convertible rolling down the long cobblestone drive toward them. Simmons was behind the wheel.

He honked twice and rose upward to explain, "Now how's _this _for a birthday, sweet pea?"

With a shout of joy, Moira rose and ran toward the car exclaiming, "Oh, _Derek_! I love you, I love you, I love you!" She squealed like the teenage girl she was and jumped into the driver's seat as he exited.

Light applause accompanied her joy.

The fluffy puppy plopped down beside his boot and Leon remarked, "We got beat out by douche in a thoroughbred."

Above him, Hunnigan mused, "Hmm...or maybe he remembered she's not eight years old anymore."

Rolling his eyes, Leon whispered to the puppy, "Somebody's bitter, huh buddy?"

He was implying it was Hunnigan, but he was pretty sure it was him.

* * *

He had dinner alone standing in his kitchen. The puppy had been unceremoniously told to live with him instead of in Hunnigan's pristine palace. So it was chewing on a rope on its bed by the back door.

Moira was still mulling over a name for her new friend.

Probably while out driving her sweet sixteen accident on three thousand dollar tires.

Sighing, Leon polished off his pad thai and rinsed the plate in the sink. He was just considering sneaking out to smoke a cigarette, even though somehow, somewhere Moira would smell it on him, when his phone rang.

Curious, he put the phone to his ear to be greeted by the very person in question, "Hey, Dad."

Perching on the stool at his counter, he returned, "Hey, darlin. What's up?"

She sounded pensive as she told him, "I was thinking we should talk about the trip to Europe with Mika again."

Blowing out a heavy sigh, he told her, "You're too young."

"Her _parents _are going, Dad. And Mom. Mom said she'd go if you'd just _stop being a fucking stick in the mud._"

Leon's brows arched as he rolled his eyes. "You kiss your mother with that mouth, kiddo?"

"Yup. I talk like my Dad, didn't anyone tell you?"

He laughed, sighing with his fingers drumming on the counter. "Fine. But you call me every night."

"...really? Realy!?" She sounded so excited. He heard her scurrying on the other end of the phone. A door opened and she called, "Mom! Mooooom!? He said YES!"

Wondering what kind of stick in the mud he really was for stopping her before and knowing it was _entirely _in an attempt to compete with Derek Simmons for her affection that he was even saying yes to begin with, he turn the phone on speaker and moved to the sink to rinse his dishes. He heard Moira laughing and running.

"Mika! He said yes!"

Right. Mika - the BFF. She was always with Moira. Mika's laughter came back to him, "Mr. Kennedy...I _love _you! I'm going to bring you back a case of wine from Napoli."

He chuckled and shook his head, "You're too young to buy wine in Italy, Mika. Don't make me rethink my decision."

"No, sir! Never, sir! Moira! Where's your Mom?!"

"I don't know! Moooom!"

Glad to have made her happy, he was lifting the highball of whiskey to his lips when there was a clunk and a rustle of sound. The laughter died a quick death. He heard them scrambling.

Had they walked in on Simmons and Hunnigan mid-coitus?

But there was a panicked breath as Moira whispered, voice breaking, "...Daddy? Dad."

Glass paused at his mouth, he arched a brow, "...what is it?"

There was no more teasing. Her harsh breathing started to alarm him. He could heard her running, but she was doing it in a way that said she was sneaking. He heard the creak of a door and she whispered, "Dad...there's someone in the house."

"Keep hiding, Moira. As quietly as possible. You hear me?"

"...I hear you. Oh my god, Dad...what do I do?"

"Wait for me. I'm comin for ya."

He was already moving. He'd never get there in time, but he'd kill himself trying


	3. Ashes3

**Damnation:**

**Ashes Remain**

* * *

"_And I looked, and **behold a pale horse**: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." -**Revelations 6:2-8**_

* * *

"_Only a fool would underestimate a man with nothing to lose."―** Lance Conrad, The Price of Nobility**_

* * *

**Chapter 2: Hostage**

* * *

It was a race against time. Sadly, it wasn't one he thought he'd win.

Leon ran for his car as he demanded, "Where are you?"

Moira hissed, "...I'm in the laundry room with Mika. Dad...I don't know wh-"

The silence was over now. Through the phone he could hear the screaming.

Hunnigan. Loud. Scared. Angry. She was shouting and there was clatter of noise that said struggle. He could hear it. He knew Moira was terrified. Hell, he was too.

He whipped the car around another and shot into the oncoming lane as he raced toward the highway. "Does Mika have her phone?"

Moira was whimpering. He could hear the shattering sound of breaking glass. Mika's voice sobbed somewhere close by. He tried again as he pushed the car up to a hundred on the highway. Even at this speed, he was eighteen minutes away.

"Moira, listen to me."

Her voice came back to him, breaking and scared, "...Mika has her phone."

"Good." He whipped the car up the exist ramp and spun one hundred and eighty degrees to the blare of horns and squealing tires as he cut off other drivers, "Have her dial 911, Moira. Now. Hurry. Where is Derek?"

"...I don't know. He left after the party. Dad...help me."

There was a clapping sound on Moira's side. Laughter and harsh gutteral language filled the line between them. He could hear the thump of landing fists and the squeak of furniture on the marble floors. He hear Moira's breath suck in with horror and Mika's muffled sobbing. Hunnigan's voice was long gone. It didn't take being there for him to know what he was hearing.

His daughter was hiding in the laundry room listening to her mother being raped.

The rage was so white hot it hurt him. It trembled through his hands as he pushed the car to as fast as it could handle. The frame shook and rocked, the tires squealed, the wheel jerked in his hands to resist it.

He could almost see her with her eye pressed to the crack in the door, watching the macabre display of her mother's defilement.

He was going kill every last man in that house. They didn't know it yet, but they were dead where they stood. The clock on the dash said he was fifteen minutes away. He heard the sirens and was grateful.

He was grateful that Mika had called 911 like he'd instructed. Maybe, maybe, maybe - they'd get there in time.

There was a rustling sound. Hunnigan's voice high and scared, _"No! PLE-"_

And Moira's soft whimper, "...Hurry, Daddy."

Daddy. That's what he was. He was her Daddy. When it mattered, at the core of it, he was her father. He was supposed to protect her. He was failing her. He was failing her mother. He wasn't fast enough to save them.

He heard Hunnigan's voice get cut off. They'd shoved something against her face to stop her pleading. He heard it. He heard it happen. The muffled scream and the gunshot. For a moment, his heart seized in his chest. He could see it - the pillow on her abused face, the terror in her while they'd used her and then executed her at point blank range.

He'd loved her for half his life and now she was gone. Stolen. Destroyed. Her daughter would never smile at her mother's tearful face when she walked down the aisle. She'd never get to see her grandchildren or hold them and smell their heads after they were born. He could see her laughter on the day they'd brought Moira into the world. So beautifully joyful.

Gone forever.

He felt the numbness descend over the rage and congeal like cold blood.

The car squealed into a fishtail as he rounded a sharp turn. With a sobbing gasp, Moira whispered, "...Dad...they're coming for us!"

He knew they would. It's what they were there for. Not to rob the place, to kidnap. Robbers didn't often rape and stick around. He commanded, "Hide. Now Moira. Hide anywhere you can."

"O-o-ok."

Mika scurried and hid inside the dryer. Moira poked herself into the wardrobe. He heard the door swish shut.

She whispered low and quiet, "...what now?"

The dash clock told him he was ten minutes away. He'd never make. He'd never get there. So he told her, "...now they'll take you."

Her gasp was high and scared. He could _see _her trembling, "..._no. No no no." _

Calming her, he kept his voice level, "Moira, listen to me. Listen to me, sweetheart. When they grab you, leave the line open. Put your phone some place where I can hear you and shout out everything about your abductors that you can. Anything, anything at all, that will help me find them. If they attack you...remember to always, always, always aim for the eyes and groin. Do you understand me?"

He heard her quiet harsh breathing before she whispered, "...I'm so scared."

So was he. His heart was hurting with it, but he told her, "I know, baby. I know you are...but I _will _come for you. Do you understand? I will not stop until I find you. Stay alive. Stay alive, Moira, and I _will_ bring you home."

"...I'll try."

He heard the door thrown open. He heard Mika's frightened screaming. The car fishtailed and nearly rolled over as he cornered again and raced like he'd get there. He'd never get there.

He knew it, but he just kept on trying.

He could hear the voices as the men approached where she was hiding. The accents, the force of language, the roll of dialect - he started recording it on his phone before they'd even begun talking. Slavic. Where? Eastern? Wester? Czech? Albanian? They weren't close enough to the phone for him to discern it that clearly.

And then?

Then they had his baby and it didn't matter anymore. He'd burn their whole fucking country to the ground to get her back.

He heard the clunk of the phone. He heard Moira scream and shout, "Tall! Scarred face from brow to chin! Huge muscles! Tattoo of interwoven snakes on his left wrist and hand!...nooo! DAD! DADDY!"

Jesus Christ.

His foot pressed the accelerator to the floor. His throat was hurting. His muscles trembling.

There was a rustle as the phone was found and lifted. He could hear the breathing on the other side, shaking and harsh. _Excited. _Her abductor was rushing with pleasure to have tortured and raped his family. Divorced or not, Hunnigan was his family. That didn't stop because you couldn't love each other anymore.

He was eight minutes away.

And so he said, voice low and dragging,"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want, and I couldn't give a fuck less. I don't have have whatever it is you're looking for, I can promise you that, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now that'll be the end of it. I won't come looking for you, I won't pursue you, but if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you and I will enjoy watching your face while you die screaming."

The silence dragged out for a handful of seconds.

Finally, there was a low pitched laugh that left his blood cold and a taunting answer in a familiar voice, "...good luck..._comrade."_

* * *

No.

Out loud into the buzzing disconnect of the line, he said it again, louder, "_No."_

Impossible.

Ada had made sure Jack Krauser was a pulsing ball of flesh in Spain. She'd been damn sure. Right?

That wasn't Jack Krauser on the phone. Jack didn't have his daughter. Jack hadn't raped and killed his ex-wife. That wasn't possible. Jack was _dead..._and nothing in their world ever stayed that way.

The car threw mud as he angled it up the huge lawn. He had to ram down the gate blocking his way to do it. It squealed and flashed with sparking metal as his Impala devoured the gate like the jaws of death. As if it could stop him.

As if anything could. The Impala spun to the side as he opened the door and threw himself out. He ran before the car had come to a complete stop. It's tire tossed mud as it finally waited in the rain with the engine running.

The front door was wide open and his gun in his hands as he cleared through it. Fast, but not stupid. He moved like he'd kill anyone he found, but he moved hoping against hope his daughter was still there.

The house was a wreck. It was smoldering on one side from a fire they'd started in the kitchen. The paper was peeling and blackened. It stank like gasoline as he rounded the first set of stairs and moved up.

He was three steps up when he heard the screaming.

Outside. Outside and to the back.

A single shout in the smoking night, "DAD!"

"...no."

Reversing, he stopped being safe. He ran for the back door to the huge mansion and through the curling inky air. His shoulder smashed into the rear door. He could hear the roar of an engine. He saw her being stuffed into the back of a van with a pillowcase on her head. Unmarked, maybe gray - it was hard to tell in the dark.

His roar shook the air with rage, "_MOIRA_!"

"_DADDDY!" _Muffled but _so loud. _She had the lungs of an opera singer.

And then someone punched her in the gut to shove her inside.

The covered face of her kidnapper turned toward him.. All Leon could make out in the dark was his grin. He stopped caring. He gave up. He lifted his gun on that grinning face.

The bullet took the man in the chest as he ducked and ran around the front of the van. He grunted and was jerked into the vehicle by someone else. The tires squealed. Leon ran so fast he was sure his lungs would evict from his body with the effort.

But feet were no match for six cylinders. The van was gone into the siren filled night before he could blink. He was on his phone as he ran back toward the house. Jill picked up on the second ring as he entered the back hallway and ran for the front door to make an attempt to chase them. "How was the party?"

She sounded so happy. She had no clue his world was on fire. He started to tell her and something rose out of the flames. The moment dragged to a crawl. It felt like he had all the time in the world to react.

He turned, his gun came up, he got off a single shot - and an answering one hit him in the chest. It threw him to his back and his phone spun across the floor as he fell. The first boot that came at his face was twisted to the side. The snap of the ankle was loud somehow in the crackling air.

A scream. A roar of pain in his shoulder where the bullet had gone in and right back out the other side. He hit the wall and started to rise and the kicking started enmasse. Not just one guy - at least four. They just started kicking the shit out of him while he rolled to his side and tried to minimize the damage.

They'd likely have beat him to death if the sirens weren't right on top of them. As they retreated, one spat at him in a guttural English, "...next time we leave _you _on a roof to die, huh?"

With laughter, another taunted, "Your bitch cried as we fucked her to death!"

He closed his fingers around his phone and shoved it into his back pocket. He knew Jill was still there on the other end, half horrified and half business. She'd make the right calls while he finished what he'd started here. She'd get him answers.

His hand slipped in his own blood as he tried to rise. The rage beat in his breast like a drum. The world was tinged in shimmering lack of oxygen. He wanted to grab Hunnigan's body. He wanted to carry her out to bury her.

The house was ablaze now.

They had his baby.

They'd murdered his wife.

He tried to get up and his ribs protested in a scream of pain. He spit blood on the floor from his damaged mouth. He finally got to his feet and stumbled toward the body thrown over the couch and half on the floor.

Still in the pretty dress she'd impressed in. Now it was around her hips with her legs obscenely spread like she'd died still being fucked. The world on fire around him wasn't nearly as hot as the rage in him. He felt like nothing in the world made sense by the blood in his mouth that tasted like revenge.

The pillow on her face saturated in blood.

He lifted the pillow off her face to find her eyes open and wide in death. Her mouth bloody and swollen. Her nose smashed like a fist had hammered it into her face.

His hand touched her cheek. He begged her forgiveness for failing her and lifted her into his arms even as his body told him he was hurt. He carried her through the smoke and flame like a man with nothing left to lose.

On the front lawn, cops were rushing toward him.

His car was gone. Gone. GONE. Stolen by the men who'd left his life in ashes. His daughter, his car, his wife...taken away by a man who should have been a long time ago. Why?

The why didn't matter. What mattered?

They were about to find out once and for all which one of them was better.

* * *

Jill had heard the whole fight go down from his phone on the floor. She'd put in calls before he'd even finished with the cops. She was tracking the leads that Moira had tossed at them. She was digging into whatever could be found on Jack Krauser still being alive.

Who was the target here? Leon?

Or Simmons?

To know that, they had to find out who was working with Krauser. The snakes on the wrist. What did it mean? The Sacred Snakes? Hidalgo? He was pretty sure they'd leveled that underground cartel in Bolivia when he'd been there last with Jack.

Had Krauser turned to the dark side and revived them? How had he survived Spain? It seemed so unlike Ada to leave a loose end that big untied.

Derek had been inconsolable when he'd left him with Hunnigan's body at the house. The longer he stood there, the less time he had to find his daughter. He'd wanted to punch the weasley asshole in the face and shout, "_What have you done!?"_

But he wasn't sure that Simmons was the target. With Krauser at the helm, there was a good chance that Leon was. Was it personal? There was too much working against him to be coincidence here.

The taxi rolled up in front of his house and idled as Leon extricated himself. The wound on his shoulder ached but he'd survived worse. It was a clean through and through shot. It would hurt, but it wouldn't stop him from tracking his daughter like a bloodhound.

Leon headed up the walk to his front door as the taxi rolled away. He reached for the keypad to put his code in and found the door cracked already. His hand froze. His ears perked.

His hand tugged his Magnum and he crouched before he jiggled the doorknob.

The crouch saved his life as the door was eradicated in a shotgun blast above him. It splintered and tossed chunks of dismantled wood. Whoever they were? They weren't very good. Stupid. Sloppy. And scared.

Leon returned fire through the hole in the door and heard them gasp and go down in a clatter. He eased open the door and cleared left and right as he crouched through. The gunman was dead on his back with a broken coffee table beneath him.

But he wasn't alone.

The second face peeped around the corner and was turned into a canoe in a handful of seconds. The heavy round left them missing a left eye and most of its socket in a bath of blood as they went to their back and someone close to them shouted, "He's here! You said he wouldn't be here!"

"Get the fucking dog!"

Were they kidding? If they even touched that goddamn dog, he was going to rip off their dicks and fuck them to death with them.

So he called, quite calmly, "You even fart in the general direction of that puppy and I'll shove your head so far up your ass you'll shit in your own mouth."

There was a rustle of sound. Using the dead body on the floor, Leon rolled it up, turned, and felt it jump twice as someone shot into it like a human shield. He returned fire from behind the bleeding corpse and got his attacker clean through the throat. They grunted, gurgled, and tumbled off his balcony to crash loudly into the kitchen below. Pots set up a ruckus of clanging metal as someone shouted, "Who _is _this guy?!"

It was pitch black in his house. Only the trickle of starlight from the floor to ceiling glass walls offered any real flicker of visibility. They clearly didn't know whose fucking house they'd decided to raid.

Did they think he'd died at Simmons' mansion?

There was a soft shift of sound and he rolled, missed losing his ear to the swipe of a knife, and kicked the body in his arms up in the air. It smacked into his attacker, sent them stumbling, and Leon shot them from one knee while they staggered back. One in the chest, one in the head. Boom. Boom.

Someone else decided to get cocky and try to snipe him from the balcony on their belly. The bullet hit his chest with a thunk. Sadly for them? He was ready now. It hit the metal plating in his vest and stopped. It hurt, it would bruise, but it wouldn't do any other damage.

The gunman squeaked, "_SHIT! _He's armored, dude! He's got goddamn body armor on! He's not a fucking art dealer!" He watched the dark shift as the gunman tried to back away.

Leon shot them between the eyes right through the balcony while they panicked and he called, "Yep. You picked the wrong goddamn guy to come after. I'll give you one chance to put down your fucking guns and tell me who you work for...or we'll find out how long you can survive with a bullet in your balls."

Someone made a sound of fear and tossed a grenade over the balcony.

Leon rolled, his hand scooped, and he tossed the goddamn thing back to them like the world's worst game of hot potato. The person shouted in horror as it cleared the balcony and the grenade went off. Sadly for them?

It was a smoke grenade.

They'd clearly meant to make him unable to see.

They didn't know him very well.

He heard the puppy yip. He saw the movement as someone grabbed for it and it tried to bite them, and he shot them twice in the back. They screamed and went to their face with a sob of pain.

Leon used the couch in front of him for a running boost as he kicked off it, caught the railing on the balcony in mid swing, and launched himself up without breaking a sweat. He heard the guy behind him stumble into the wall and shot him through the smoke while he staggered. The sound of him flipping over the railing was loud in the smoky air.

On their face, the last of the gasping assault team was trying to crawl away.

Leon put a boot on his back and pressed into the wound above his left hip. The man squealed and jerked, crying out and begging, "W-w-wait! WAIT! Please! I didn't know! I didn't know what they wanted! They said to raid the place for anything valuable. They said you had a fucking expensive car so you probably had money! They said to get the dog and kill it and s-string it up on...on...on your tree out front to teach you a lesson. I-I didn't want to! I didn't know! I'm just a grunt man! A nobody!"

Leon grabbed him by the back of his jacket and jerked him to his knees. "Hands on the back of your head."

The guy did it without question as Leon told him, "You'd be surprised what a nobody knows. Where's my daughter?"

Looking afraid in the smoke, the man gasped, "W-who? Who? I don't know man. I swear to god. The-the girl in the house? Which one? I don't know anything about them."

"Let's try this again. Put your hand on the floor in front of you. Now."

Afraid, the man did it, trembling, "What man!? What? I can't _tell _you anything!"

"Yeah? Take a second and reconsider, won't you?" Leon stepped on his hand while the man jerked and shouted in pain. "Anything?"

"No! No! I don't know anything!" It was high pitched and terrified and pain filled. "I don't!"

With a shrug, Leon said conversationally, "That's a shame. Maybe I can jog that memory." Without another word, he raised the gun and the man squealed in horror before it echoed - and took off half his hand in a spray of blood and bone. Chunks splattered the wall as the man keened and jerked spastically, sobbing.

Holding him down with a foot on his wrist, Leon inquired curiously, "What? Hurts? Let's try this again...Where. Is. My. Daughter?" Each word was punctuated with a press of his boot on what was left of his hand, "When I finish here, I'll move on to your feet. We can go all night...or you can start fucking talking."

With a whimper and a snotty gasp, the man told him, "...M-M-Marcus. Marcus. I work for Marcus. H-He's got a shop. A shop over on Ettleston. M-Mostly mob type stuff, ya know? But we merc when the moneys good."

Leon arched a brow, "What about my car? What asshole took my car?"

"Lazlo. He's...he's kinda the main goon? I don't know. He acts like his shit don't stink man. I just needed the dough. I swear. I didn't know about your daughter. I-I didn't...I didn't touch your wife!" He shouted it like it would matter at this point, "I don't rape! I don't do that! I just take shit! I _swear!_"

"You the guy who hit my daughter?To get her in the van?"

The man whimpered desperately, "...it's just a job, man. Just a job." He was pleading. He was crying. He was terrified.

But now he knew why he'd lost his hand.

Shouting high and loud, the man told him, "It wasn't personal man!"

And Leon returned, "That's where you're wrong. You made it personal when you touched what's mine."

The gun was loud. The back of his head exploded as if he'd swallowed a grenade. The man flopped in a pool of blood and his own shattered teeth. Leon dug into the pocket of his jacket and pulled free his phone.

When it asked for a thumb print, he was glad he'd blown off the other side of his fist. The moment the call log popped up, Leon saw the text from Lazlo. It was detailed. It knew things about his house it shouldn't have.

It had his codes for his doors and his gate. It had the location of his safe.

At least the one they thought would matter.

His doorbell dinged down below and Leon shifted over to touch the panel on the wall beside his couch and pull up the security feed. The curious face of a young cop was waiting for him. He smiled and said, "Evenin, Mr. Kennedy."

"Evenin, Jimmy."

"There's been some...concern about the noise."

Leon nodded and managed to look sheepish, "Party got a little out of hand. I could use...some help cleaning up."

Jimmy nodded sagely and told him, "Gotcha. I'll get right on that. Mr. Kennedy."

"Jimmy."

The young cop turned away without another word. That tended to happen when you were the right hand of the President. He managed to, literally, get away with murder. By the time he wandered back upstairs, the mess he'd made wouldn't even exist anymore. That was the price of power in his business. It wiped the slate when you greased the right palms.

With a whimper, the puppy beneath the couch belly crawled out. It sniffed around the dead man between them, lifted its leg, and pissed on his exploded head.

Yeah, he thought, he kinda liked the damn dog.

Leon clucked his tongue and put a bloody hand down to it. The puppy slinked over until he could pick him up and cuddle him. It licked his face - afraid but unharmed.

Holding it close, Leon moved down the hallway to his bedroom. They'd raided the safe hidden in his closet, but it hadn't contained anything but some cash and a watch or two. That was all scattered on the floor and half stuffed in a bag.

Ignoring it, Leon set down the puppy on the soft dog bed by the closet door and put his palm flat against the back wall of the open safe. It made a clicking sound and an ocular scanner emerged through a plate that opened in the ceiling. It lowered, scanned his left eye, and the floor of the closet grumbled.

It slid open and offered stairs downward.

Curious, the puppy followed him down the steps.

The untrained eye saw a sterile concrete room, but Leon put his hand flat below the light switch beside him. It beeped and the lights flickered. A panel beside him slid open to offer a sledge hammer.

Leon shucked off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. The puppy perched on the stairs watching him as he picked it up and rolled it in his palms. Lifting a brow, he asked the puppy, "What? You think I'd make it easy for someone?"

The puppy panted and waggled its tongue as he lifted the sledgehammer over his head and remarked, "Fuck that. They want it? They can dig for it. How long you think it would take to break up this hole room looking for my stash? If they were even wise enough to dig for it."

He brought down the sledgehammer with a cacophonous boom of sound against the cold gray ground.

The puppy laid its shaggy head on its paws and watched him in companionable silence.

If Lazlo was the guy who'd raped Hunnigan and helped set up Moira's kidnapping, he couldn't possibly anticipate what hell he'd unleashed on himself. He wasn't just dead, he was dead and burning. He just didn't know it yet.

In the rubble, Leon rose shirtless from the pit he'd unearthed. He'd just finished sealing the wound in his shoulder when the phone he'd taken off the corpse beeped. He picked t up to find the text message from Lazlo.

_Done?_

And Leon texted back: _Done. _

A moment later: _Meet Warehouse. Fifteen minutes. Dispose of phone._

A pin was dropped with the location. Leon memorized it and pocketed the phone anyway.

In fifteen minutes? He'd be disposing of Lazlo along with the phone.

The clock was ticking. He had less than ninety six hours to track Moira and Mike before they were lost forever. He was officially on borrowed time. Lazlo was about to find out what happened when you fucked with another man's world.


	4. Ashes4

**Damnation:**

**Ashes Remain**

* * *

"_And I looked, and **behold a pale horse**: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." -**Revelations 6:2-8**_

* * *

"_Only a fool would underestimate a man with nothing to lose."―** Lance Conrad, The Price of Nobility**_

* * *

**Chapter 3: Hard Target**

* * *

**Kennedy ****Residence**

* * *

Leon slipped on a slick gray shirt, strapped on his Kevlar, tugged on a navy blue fleece that was fraying at the cuffs and looped his holster above it. He slipped on his watch and bent to pick up the puppy as he walked. It eyed him calmly as he told it, "I'm gonna drop you with a friend. Try not to pee on anyone who doesn't deserve it." The dog licked his chin in answer.

His house was spotless as he crossed through it to leave. Even the door was replaced and brand new. He opened up the garage to find his motorcycle inside and waiting for him. With a twist of his lips, he considered how to get the dog on the bike.

Finally, he tucked the puppy into the front of his fleece. It rode in front of him with its fluffy head poking out and tongue wagging. The bike rolled to a stop at the stairs of a brownstone.

The front door opened and blue eyes with red hair looked down at him. Leon released the puppy to leap the stairs toward the person waiting there. She arched one red brow at him and admonished him silently.

Claire - treating him like an unruly child since 1998.

He winked at her and twisted the throttle before he peeled away from the curb. The puppy was safe with her. Claire would disembowel anyone who even looked sideways over something in her care.

As for him?

He had a foul mouthed peon to torture.

* * *

**Warehouse District, Lower East Side**

* * *

The quiet night was broken by the gong of a buoy somewhere out in the ocean. The building was rundown, boarded up windows and crumbling stone, ugly gray concrete and boring nondescript walls. Graffiti was tagged across most of the buildings near the water, highlighting gang signs and sporting filthy suggestions for the reader in bright neon colors.

Standing guard, the two men stationed outside the doors were shifting on their feet. One of them lit up a cigarette and bitched, "It's fucking cold out here, man. Why are we always on shit duty?"

The other one shrugged, "You know how Marcus is, dude. He wants to make sure Lazlo gets whatever he wants."

"So we have to stand out here while he takes his piece of ass upstairs and fucks her bowlegged?"

The other man shrugged again, "That's the gig. It's what you signed up for."

"I signed up for killing shit and fucking girls, man. Not this guard duty crap."

"Baby steps. Besides...didn't you finger that girl we took from the house earlier?"

In the shadows, Leon felt the first boil of rage at their words before the other one answered, "Yeah but she fucking cried the whole time and then the other one kicked me in the balls when I tried. Not exactly the stuff you see in a good porno."

The first man with a big nose and buck teeth laughed, "Like you'd ever get a girl to let you finger her otherwise. You look like a hobbit."

The second guy gave him the finger, "I'm gonna go plow that bitch Lazlo has with him when he's done. Mark my words."

"Oh, are ya? Like his sloppy seconds, do ya?"

"Please...he's hung like a hamster. I'll rip that bitch apart with my shit."

They both laughed and snickered. The big nosed one chuckled, "I'll take the feisty one, man. I like a woman with a little fight in her. More fun to break that way."

And out of the darkness, the voice said, "Oh, I agree. Breaking someone is all kinds of fun."

The crunch of that huge nose was loud against the backdrop of whispering tide. No guns, Leon thought, not yet. Besides, there was nothing more satisfying than beating a man to death.

As big nose started gagging on his buck teeth, the other one swung his gun up like he'd really get the chance to shoot their attacker. Leon spun a back kick and knock the weapon into the dark, caught his wrist and jerked, and broke the attacker's arm over his shoulder with a wet pop.

Buck teeth surged forward bravely and got a flat handed whack to his Adam's apple for the effort. He gagged and choked, stumbling and Leon kicked him clean in the balls while he staggered. It put him on his knees gasping, grunting, and grabbing his crotch. A quick shift and his neck snapped wetly as Leon broke and tossed him to the ground.

The second guy lifted his hands and backed off, looking horrified. "Whoa! Whoa man...whoa. What the hell do you want?"

Harshly, Leon inquired, "Which one?"

"W-what? What?"

"Which one did you finger? Which one was crying while you violated her? Which girl?"

Face pale, the man shook his head, "...I-I don't...the blonde one?"

Mika.

And the man added, "The dark haired one was a cunt. She bit my hand and kicked me in the crotch. I should have fucked that bi-"

The man squealed. The moment was too fast. The knife in his groin sunk hilt deep as Leon grabbed the back of his neck and jerked him into it. His mouth opened and closed like a landed fish as Leon hissed against his ear. "That's my daughter, you piece of shit. Who's fucked now?"

The hot blood smelled like pennies in the salty air as it poured out of his ruined groin. The man gurgled wetly.

Leon jerked the blade up as he spun away. It opened like a zipper, spilling the curling greasy tumble of intestines out of the ruined cavity. The air suddenly stank of undigested stomach gases and vomit. The man collapsed to his knees. He grabbed for his belly and his ruined groin like he'd stuff it all back in. He looked wildly at his fingers filled with his own intestines like snakes swirling there in his palms...and he went down on his side with a twitch and jerk of a seizure.

He was still seizing as Leon picked up the dying man's shotgun and turned toward the door. It was thrown open and the first man threw met his death in a blast of buckshot at close range. It obliterated his face and covered his comrades in gushing blood.

They started shouting in horror. One shot blindly through the open door and Leon kicked the dead guy into them. They were fatal funneled in the doorway. It was stupid, rash, and amateur.

The faceless body took them back and had them stumbling. While they did, Leon blasted them again with the shotgun. It went through the chest of the first guy and caught the one behind him in the backwash. As the second guy screamed and tried to run, Leon put him down with another round to the back. It sent him to his face in a smear of blood on the ugly floor.

The pound of feet on the stairs brought three more men. Leon took the first one out with a roaring pull of the trigger to the legs. He screamed and fell down the stairs. It tripped up the men behind him and Leon leveled the shotgun on the stumbling pair and fired from the shoulder. The sound was cacophonous in the warehouse, echoing as it splattered in tableau like red paint in a water balloon that burst on the sidewalk.

The whoosh of air beside him had Leon ducking left, missing the swing of a knife that nearly took his shoulder, and he spun low and swept his leg out putting the attacker on the ground on his side. He was executed with a clean hit to the face of the heavy shotgun stock. There was a thunk as a bullet hit his chest plate and Leon dropped the empty shotgun and grabbed the knife on the floor. He rolled to avoid losing his face to the next bullet, took cover behind the open doorway beside him, and chucked the knife in his hand.

It zipped. It struck. It went through the throat of the man on the stairs and sent him gurgling to his back as he fell. A bullet hit him in the back side of his vest and sent Leon smacking into the door frame. The empty room behind him wasn't empty after all. Someone had risen out from behind the desk there.

A woman shouted and kicked him from the hip into the wall again as he started to turn. Leon swung an elbow that she swept past her and pummeled him twice in the exposed side as he went. Impressed, he still caught her striking fist and jerked, taking her clean off her feet.

Skilled or not, she was still small in stature. As she stumbled forward, he caught her by the back of her belt and jerked her up. She shrieked as he tossed her into the desk and it shattered under the blow. She landed on her face and didn't move.

As he shifted toward her, she rolled to her back and tried to shoot him from the hip. The bullet missed his forehead but winged his cheek, spilling blood. As she cackled like a witch, he shot her between the eyes before she could run.

Bitch.

That's what he got for trying to go easy on a girl.

He knew better.

The movement beside the door got the person there shot through the cracked wood. They shrieked and smacked loudly into the concrete wall behind them. Leon kicked open the door as they tried to crawl away.

Skinny guy, barely old enough to shave. As he crawled, Leon warned him, "Stop. Now."

He did, going prone on the floor on his face as he begged, "Please. I'm just the guy who runs the books for Lazlo. Just a paper pusher."

Leon shot him in the back of the head without a word. He headed up the stairs while the body was still twitching.

The loud thumping music and muffled talking told him whatever party Lazlo was having, he hadn't heard the massacre that had gone on just beyond his door. There was crash of something, laughter, and the desperate cry of a girl. Moira?!

His boot hit the door and threw it wide. The man just beyond the door was snorting coke off a table and didn't even have time to reach for the gun on the couch beside him before Leon drilled him through the left eye and swung the gun up to the loft where another man was hammering his flabby ass into a screaming girl. They didn't even muffle her. That's how arrogant they were that it didn't matter.

As the man turned and shouted, "What the fuck-!?"

Leon shot him in the back before he could turn. The body fell forward onto the screaming girl, but at least she was safe now. There was a scramble of sound and the girl started shouting again in fear.

A guttural string of Russian escorted the noise of a desperate man. "_Ни фига себе!"_

The dialect was different than the ones Leon had on his phone. Those meant weren't Russian, but Lazlo was speaking some guttural form of it now. It was hard without the right practiced ear to catch the subtle difference in certain Slavic dialects.

After a moment of listening to Lazlo continue muttering to himself, Leon amended his earlier thought. Maybe not Russian, exactly, maybe more in line with the butchered version found in the Eastern Slav Republic.

As he rounded the top of the stairs, he found the man in question in an ugly purple robe clasping the naked girl to his front. She was smeared in blood from the man who'd fallen atop her. Her face was swollen and bruised. Her breasts mirroring the abuse they'd heaped on her. Her red hair was stuck to her face in places with dried blood.

Not Mika. Not Moira.

But young like them.

And terrified.

To calm her, Leon stated, "Let her go, you fucking idiot, or I will shoot you through her."

She whimpered desperately. Lazlo used her like a shield, putting a pocket knife against her throat. "You wouldn't. Good guys...they don't hurt victims. Yes? You are a good guy."

Oh yeah, that was the guy who'd bragged about raping Hunnigan. There was no getting around that. He had the same sniveling whine to his voice. Leon shrugged a shoulder, "She'll live, and you'll be dead. I think it's a win/win."

The girl looked desperately terrified. Lazlo shook his head, "Drop your gun, hero, or I will turn her throat into another dripping gash for me to fuck."

He was going to enjoy killing this idiot. No question about that.

Shrugging, Leon dropped the pistol. As it fell, so did he, he went to his side on the floor, caught the gun as it tumbled, and shot Lazlo in the exposed ribs from the floor. The girl took the moment to elbow him clear in the stomach as he screamed and bobbled the knife. He cut her face as she fled, but she managed to get away while he screamed like a girl.

She should have run for the stairs and safety...but she ran naked and bloody toward Leon to help him up. Impressed with her courage, he put her behind him as he rose and mused, "You're too stupid to live, _Сволочь_."

Lazlo, exposed in his robe, bleeding as he collapsed to one side on the bed, still managed to sound tough as he shouted, "You will not kill me! You will _never _see your daughter again if you do!"

Softly, behind him, the girl there whispered, "...I know where they took her. They were speaking mostly in some other language but one of them...he laughed and said Edonia."

With a wide grin, Leon shrugged a shoulder and told him, "See? Turns out saving girls gets you more loyalty than raping them. Looks like we don't need you after all."

And he shot Lazlo in the shoulder to spin him around to his hands and knees on the floor. Lazlo shouted, the girl backed up and Leon told her, "Get me something to tie him up. Can you do that?"

She nodded rapidly and ran down the stairs.

Lazlo spat, trying to crawl away, "You are making a mistake, _cyka_. I'm more valuable alive."

Leon pressed a boot into his back to force his face to the floor. Lazlo grunted as he asked, "You rape my wife?"

The silence was so loud. He ground his boot on the other man's wounded side until Lazlo squealed like a bitch and asked again, "Did you? You hold a pillow on her fucking face when you shot her?"

Face down, muffled, Lazlo bragged, "Yes! She _loved _it!"

And Leon pistol whipped him in the back of the head while Lazlo laughed.

The next thing Lazlo knew, he was being struck hard across the face.

When he came to, he was strapped to a chair in the boiler room. The girl was standing near the door in his robe. She had three rusty masonry nails in her hands. The kind one might use to sink an anchor into concrete.

Calmly, Leon commanded, "There we go. Wake up! I need you focused for this."

Lazlo spat, "I would rather fuck your mother! She would beg like your wife!"

It got him slapped across the face like a bitch. He growled and spit with a trapped animals rage.

Shrugging, Leon put his hand out to the girl. She put the nails in his palm, "The next time she wants to get fucked by a thumb, I'll give her your number. Until then...who paid you to take my daughter?"

"Suck my dick!"

And Lazlo spit in his face this time. It spilled down his chin as the man laughed, harshly, "_Ублюдок."_

With a snort, Leon reared back and drove the nails into Lazlo's naked thighs. He screamed so high and loud that the girl by the door jumped, but she didn't run. She wanted to watch it. The impulse to see her attacker tortured was very, very human.

In a way, it was the best kind of medicine.

Leon ducked down and picked up a pair of jumper cables. Eyes wide, Lazlo shook his head in denial as he clamped them to the heavy ends of the nails sticking out of those skinny thighs and remarked, "I've pierced your popliteal artery in your left thigh. The nail is keeping pressure on the wound, so it's just building up and waiting for release. Still..this should make things more fun. Who paid you to kidnap my daughter?"

Lazlo laughed, yellow teeth bared and returned, "You think you can scare me? They will have me castrated for telling you."

"...what do you think I'm gonna do?" Leon shifted toward the breaker box on the wall. With horror, Lazlo realized he'd fixed the other end of the jumper cables to the exposed wiring there.

Shaking his head desperately, the naked man shouted, "You won't! You won't! Good guys don't torture people!"

And Leon laughed now, shaking his head, "Sure they do. And sometimes? We enjoy it."

He hit the switch below the breaker. The lights above the naked man sparked as the electricity hit his body like a foot in water with a broken power line. He jerked. The veins in his neck stood out as his shouting died under the horrendous pain his body absorbed. His chair squeaked and rocked. His body humped and twisted.

The girl by the door watched raptly. Leon glanced at her as he killed the power. "You ok?"

She nodded, pushing back her dark hair, "Yeah. Do it again."

Amused, his mouth split into a grin, "Easy, tiger. We'll get there."

The girl rolled the final nail in her hand around and chewed her lips. Curious about her intent for that last one, Leon shifted over to eye the twitching man in the chair. "One more time for the cheap seats in the back...who paid you to take my daughter?"

Lazlo spit at him again. This time, it got him a balled up piece of a greasy washcloth shoved into his mouth for the effort. He made hmm hmm hmm sounds behind the gag and Leon sighed, rolling his eyes.

"This guy...his conversation? It's electric." A pun. Why not? It was the right time for that.

And he hit the switch.

The girl took a sharp breath that was almost excitement. She watched with bright eyes as his body jerked and he screamed desperately into his gag again. Leaning on the wall, Leon told him, "You better figure this next part out, you turd. I will flip this switch and leave it until they shut off the goddamn power to the building. Eventually, the voltage will put you into atrial fibrillation. After that? You'll arrest. Meanwhile? That current just keeps fucking you while you scream. Seems fitting, right?"

The girl licked her lips like a lion waiting to feed.

He appreciated the hunger for revenge. It was in his mouth too. Flipping the switch, Leon moved over to yank the gag out of Lazlo's mouth and he gasped, high pitched and afraid, "Ok! ok! You want Marcus. He would have sold her. He would have sold her by now."

Leon arched his brows. "Sold her?"

Licking his dry lips in fear, Lazlo nodded, "Yes. Yes. We have a broker...he handles-the sale of goods. He is discreet. He operates out of Edonia."

Glancing at the girl, Leon looked back at Lazlo, "Adjacent to the ESR?"

"...yes. Yes. The ESR is in revolt. Civil unrest. The internal power struggle, it makes for a shady way to deal in goods that certain...powers can't get through common channels."

The cold rage settled into his chest as Leon ground out, low and frightening, "You sell my daughter like a whore, Lazlo? You rape my wife and sell my daughter?"

Whimpering, Lazlo whined, "I didn't know! I didn't know who you were! I don't know these things! I take orders. I do the job! I...get perks sometimes."

The girl by the door spat, "...like me?"

And Lazlo whimpered again, "I didn't know! The man...the big one...he said it was just a job. Someone had paid him to do it. But he seemed so eager to hurt you. He told me t-t-to rape her! He encouraged me! He said he'd do it...b-but he doesn't fuck sloppy seconds."

Jack Krauser had sold his daughter into sex slavery.

He'd sold his daughter like horse that waited to be mounted.

The rolling wrath was nearly cloying as Leon replied, harshly, "I don't care what you knew. I want the money man. I want the buyer. Who?"

Lazlo whined pathetically, "I..I-I don't-"

Leon slapped his face, hard, "_Who?!"_

The demand was loud. It echoed. It made Lazlo cower and shake his head.

"I can't know that!" Lazlo shouted desperately, "Marcus...he would have set up the auction! He...I...they will control her first. She's wild. She'll be...broken."

The girl whispered, softly, "...drugs. They talked about drugs. He mentioned heroin. He promised he'd get me high if I just behaved. Wouldn't I like to forget and just feel the world under a filter of pleasure?"

Leon held his hand out in front of his face. It was shaking. His hands hadn't shook since the first time he'd killed a man. It wasn't fear, it was the most ungodly rage he'd ever felt in his life.

They were going to turn his daughter into a junkie whore. They had no idea how far he'd go to stop that from happening. She was the only thing in his world that was pure.

Voice painfully low, like a bear talking, Leon asked him, "...you enjoying _breaking_ my wife?"

Lazlo looked like he might be ill. His lips trembled as she pleaded, "Please...please...I can help you. Yes? I can help!"

Leon turned toward the switch and the girl shouted, "Wait! Wait, please!"

Lazlo looked relieved like she might be showing him mercy. But it wasn't mercy she was after...it was justice. She shifted over in front of him. She stuffed the filthy rag back in his mouth. He choked, tears on his face, as she told him, "...don't cry, sweetheart, it just makes me fuck you harder." It was a pretty good imitation of a bad Slavic accent.

And she shoved the nail in her hands into his scrotum. It was was just sitting there on the chair, shriveled and exposed. She shoved the nail into him while he screamed and screamed and screamed behind his gag. His balls bled down the white wood and dripped on the floor to join the pool from his thighs.

He raged and jerked, humping and sobbing.

The girl turned away and walked toward Leon with the robe clutched demurely around her. She nodded at him.

And he flipped the switch.

The pop and crackle of electricity covered the muffled screaming as they walked down the long dark hallway.

Beside him, she finally said, "I was one of four girls in that van. Your daughter...which one was she?"

He glanced at her face as they moved toward the exit. "She has dark hair. Short. Her name is M-"

"Moira." The girl nodded at him and interrupted him, "She said you were coming. She was the bravest of us, I think. She was so sure you'd save her. She said you were tough...I think she underestimated you."

He studied her bruised face in the streetlamp as they stepped outside. She shivered against the cold and shook her head when he offered her the jacket off the dead man on the ground. "No. I don't want anything they've touched. Listen...I just...they were talking about the price of her. One of them said she'd be...checked to see if she was pure."

His teeth clenched as she added, "I was the first one they...inspected."

She stared at a point out in the water and confessed, "They hold you down and finger you. It's not gentle. The have one of the goons hold your legs back. And the first guy shoves two fingers into you until he finds your hymen. I wasn't a virgin, so they declared me spoiled goods. After that...he just kept on fingering me while they all laughed. I tried not to cry...but..." She trailed off.

Jaw clenched, he hesitated but finally lifted a hand to her cheek. She closed her eyes as two tears eeked out. "Sorry. I'm so cold. I'm having trouble focusing."

Shock. It would do that to you. He tugged off his holster, pulled his fleece over his head, and she lifted her arms to let him tuck her into it. "...you're kinda young to have a girl my age, I think."

He rubbed her arms when she added, "So..they checked the other one in the van with us. Mika? She wasn't pure either I guess. One of them...they used a beer bottle on her when they discovered she was...spoiled goods. They were starting on the third girl...Simone when they took me out of there."

She lifted her eyes to his face and her lips trembled, "I'm sorry. I'm sure Moira was next. She was so tough. She was shouting at them and taunting them. She was trying to get their anger on her I think. So they'd leave us alone."

She would. It was who she was.

Leon cupped her face and the street lamp highlighted it. Pretty girl. Maybe eighteen. Maybe younger. She had slanted eyes that spoke of some kind of Asian heritage. The red hair reminded him of Claire. Quietly, he avowed, "I will kill them. Every last one of them. I swear to god, I will."

Her eyes spilled tears down her cheeks. Her breath hitched and shivered as she smiled at him, "I know. She told them...she said they'd shit in the wrong backyard. She said they'd regret touching us."

Us. Not just her - Us. She knew. She knew he'd kill them all for every girl in that van. And every girl that had come before them.

Not just her. Not just Hunnigan. All of them.

There were reasons she was his daughter.

He'd never spoken a word about what he did or who he was when he wasn't with her, but somehow Moira knew what he was capable of anyway.

He rubbed her arms briskly to put feeling back into her. "What's your name?"

"...Tara."

"Tara," He turned her toward the bike, "I'm gonna take you somewhere safe. I need to know if they mentioned anything about an address or a location..."

She climbed on the bike in that pathetic robe she was wearing. He opened his saddle bag and offered her a blanket. As he took the handle bars and gunned the engine, she cocooned them both as she looped her arms around him to hold on and whispered, "...the scarred guy looked right at me and said...the answer lies behind the red door...I think he wanted me to tell you that."

Leon licked his teeth. He angled the bike toward Claire's again.

The Red Door.

It was a night club on the edges of the city of Vuk inside the ESR. It was straddling the line between Edonia and the sovereign state. It was a sanctuary for the depraved and the dregs of their world.

He'd had meetings there with contacts and sat across from murders in a place of relative peace to get information. You didn't kill anyone when you were behind the Red Door. If you did, you risked being ostracized from anything pertaining to the unspoken side of the dark.

If they were holding Moira there, he'd never get to her.

Unless he went in guns blazing. It might burn bridges to that side of the world for him forever in terms of business.

He didn't care. He didn't give a shit about business. This was personal. It was the only thing that mattered. He'd watch his life go up in flames if it brought her back to him.

At this point, he had nothing left to lose.


	5. Ashes5

**Damnation:**

**Ashes Remain**

* * *

"_And I looked, and **behold a pale horse**: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." -**Revelations 6:2-8**_

* * *

"_Only a fool would underestimate a man with nothing to lose."―** Lance Conrad, The Price of Nobility**_

* * *

**Chapter 4: The Red Door**

* * *

**City of Vuk, Outside the borders of the Eastern Slav Republic**

* * *

It paid to know someone who could get you into any place on Earth. The face that peeped beyond the door looked nervous but determined. Not a word, not a sound, just a nod and the door opened for him.

The Red Door wasn't a place you walked in the front door with your guns blazing. It was a place you snuck in through the back and hoped like hell you were good enough to survive. Here was hoping he was good enough.

Less than an hour before he'd been sitting in a bar across from the most neutral person in the business. She'd rolled her drink in her palm and told him, "You're a fool to try...you know that."

All legs and red lips in a red dress that was her namesake, Ada Wong wore spy like other women wore pearls - flawlessly. She was never on the right or wrong side, she was on her own. She operated in her impervious brand of justice in a way that was enviable to a man who'd spent so long trying to stay in the light. The dark, it seemed, offered so much more power.

He'd play in the dark for the right reasons. He'd dwell there like a mythological monster if it meant he brought his girl home safely. As if she knew that, Wong licked her lower lip invitingly, "...you're also the most stubborn man I've ever known. So I know better than to offer you any kind of dissuading speeches."

She laid the coin on the table between them - gold, pretty, with a girl and snake wrapped together in a mortal embrace. "That will buy you the freedom you want. It'll also cost you."

Leon sipped the vodka in his hand, "I figured. What?"

"Oh, that comes later, darling, you know that." She ran her hand up his thigh under the table, playing with him, "I'll be in touch. Long time, no see, Leon...don't be a stranger."

They would always be strangers...even if they'd shared a bed more than once in the years he'd known her. She was nearly as dangerous as he she was beautiful. She was deadly, determined, and irresistable..it was really part of her charm. He rose now, letting her hand slide off his leg without playing in return. She arched a brow as he told her, "Ada, never a pleasure."

Her laughter had chased him from the neutral meet location.

He thought of her now as he stood in the bathroom of The Red Door. The red and blue lights swirled magically around him, offering the club a nearly storybook feel. It was interesting to know it was about to turn from storybook to murder mystery.

The informant whispered, "...you'll find Viktor in here. He is Marcus'...best man. Here." He handed Leon the photo in his palm. A muscular man with a big nose. Marcus, clearly.

Leon nodded and offered him a wad of cash. The man took it, clearing his throat, "...you don't know me."

"Know who?" Leon passed by him as the man scurried away. He eased through the locker room and saw the back of a man in a robe. He simply grabbed him from behind and stuck a knife in the side of his throat - simple, fast, quiet. The man gurgled and collapsed, dead before he hit the ground.

There was a second man at the mirror humming happily. He wasn't sure how he knew, but something told him this was Viktor. Without a word, Leon grabbed his neck from behind and shoved his face into the water in the sink before him.

The man shouted, gagging, gurgling desperately and struggled for all the good it would do. He was jerked free, gasping, and swung his elbow like it would do him any good. Leon jerked the arm, broke it with a wet pop, and smashed his face against the counter twice for the effort. The man shouted, it was lost in the music beyond the door, and he was tugged upward with the knife pressed to his throat.

"Marcus," Leon demanded through his teeth, "Where?"

The man gasped, bravely, "Fuck you...comrade."

It was the comrade that did it. It made him picture Krauser. It made Leon red with rage. He shoved the knife into the man's groin, watched him seize with pain, and tried once more, "Next one goes into your fucking balls...where?"

Gagging, the man mewled, "...pool. Pool."

Without another word, Leon spun Viktor around and shoved his face in the water. He rallied, fighting back, and Leon told him, "...you fucked my wife...you piece of shit."

His neck snapped with a wet pop of bone. The body sagged to the floor limply. Leon tugged his gun free and rose. He emerged from the bathroom into the club and the pulse of heavy techno was jarring. There was the echo of a pretty female singer in the strains of the chords.

Quietly, Leon made his way through the gauzy curtains toward the echo of laughter at the poolside. He was careful to hang in the shadows as he watched the man in the photo in the pool attempting to pleasure three girls that giggled around him. Screwing the silencer on the end of the pistol, Leon put it back in the holster and pulled his knife.

There were four men between him and his target. He took out the first with a knife to the base of the skull. The second was finished off by a shot from the silenced gun. He eliminated the third in a splash of blood and an easy round to the skull.

The fourth guard became aware and tried to fight back. They struggled, Leon kicked him twice in the crotch, and it spilled them through the curtains to the floor to disrupt the pool party. As he held the man down on the ground, he caught Marcus' gaze. Without dropping the look, the executed the guard with a round between the eyes. The body jerked, Marcus panicked and grabbed the girl in his arms to use like a human shield.

Coward.

Leon tracked them as the man dragged her screaming to the glass wall beside him. A man rose from the pool - huge, Chris Redfield big - and tried to take Leon out. The hit to the face hurt, but Leon took it to stab the knife in his hand into his massive chest. The man jerked, grabbed his throat, and Leon stomped down on his instep, kneed him in the balls, and shot him twice before he could recover.

He pursued Marcus into the overly packed club. People cavorted, dancing madly in the flashing lights. It was impossible to get a clean shot with everyone moving. Marcus, in a towel, raced for the far side of the club.

Leon popped off two shots, had the crowd screaming and scattering, and a man launched himself on his back. Leon struggled, tossing him over his shoulder and dislocating it as he did. The man shouted in pain, Leon shot him in the face from above, and Marcus was at the stage now and fleeing faster.

Leon chased him, dodging and ducking beneath the crowd when shots went off around him. People screamed. One hit him in the shoulder, and Leon kept on moving anyway. He bled, he fired from the ground into the balcony and took down two men gunning for him. People panicked and stampeded while Marcus was lost out the back door of the stage.

Leaping to the stage, Leon chased him through the doors into the lobby. A man tackled him, they battled for control and Marcus cut left up the stairs to the balcony. Leon was thrown into the wall by his bigger opponent, kicked from the hip and sent the man spinning, and shot him in the back twice and the head once for the effort.

He put a bead on Marcus' retreating back and the pain in his side was immediately. Shot. Again. Pissed about it, Leon turned and was tackled hard by a huge man in a suit. They battled for all the good it did, the man caught him around the middle and simply tossed him over the balcony, and Leon thought, "...well, shit."

He hit the ground, the pain nearly crippled him, but instinct had him rolling to his feet to lumber up and limp toward the doors. He fired off a shot at his attacker to send the man running, Leon barreled through the doors to the outside and watched the car zip away with Marcus in the back. Pissed, Leon limped into the retreating crowd and stumbled through them into an alley.

He leaned on the wall, angrily jerking on the suit jacket to show his bleeding side and shoulder. His left arm was dislocated, dangling at his side from the fall. Furious, he limped left and tugged his phone from his jacket pocket.

It rang twice and his spit, "...Vuk. Red Door."

He hung up, slid down the wall, and waited. Ten minutes later, he was tugged into a car and speeding into the dark. The girl inside demanded roughly, "Remove the coat, please."

He did and she shoved something hot and sharp against his shoulder. He hissed and she shook her head, condemning lightly, "You're pretty stupid. You know this is the last time we can help you."

He offered her the gold coin Ada had given him. She arched her brows and corrected, "Sorry, sir. Let's get you somewhere safe. Management will be happy to assist."

Leon leaned back in the seat, aching, and simply said nothing. Wherever Marcus was, he was on borrowed time. Annoyed at the failure to secure him, Leon watched the dark beside the car and cursed silently in his head.

* * *

Lying on his back in the hotel room, his arm pinned to his chest, Leon tried to get a handle on his rage. He was acting irrationally here. He was making moves he'd ordinarily avoid.

He had to get his game face on. Moira's face in his head crying while some men violated her was making him insane. He blew out a hard breath and his phone jingled lightly.

The voice on the other side brought him some measure of peace, "You alright?"

His grunt was answer. Jill spoke again, softly, "You need me?"

Grumbling, he told her, "No. I don't want you involved. I need you there. Promise me."

She said nothing until he demanded, "Jill...promise me."

Quietly, she finally avowed, "I'll stay. I'm looking. For god's sake...stay alive."

She hung up. He laid in the dark. His body ached. His determination felt like iron melting in the pit of his stomach.

* * *

Moira cowered, listening to the voices beyond the room where she was tied to a chair. Her heart pounded desperately in her chest. The language was something she didn't understand.

She recognized a few words thrown out in English - boogeyman. Monster. Madman. Kennedy.

Kennedy the boogeyman. Her father. He doting, loving, laughing father was a terror in this world. They were afraid of him. It gave her hope. It brought her gaze to the other girls in the room.

One whimpered as she told them, "...hold on. Ok? Just stay with me here. We'll be ok."

The door opened and one screamed as a man grabbed her and jerked her from the chair. The girl shouted in fear and Moira called to her, "Don't cry! STAY STRONG!"

It was the first time a man touched her since she'd been taken. He hit Moira in the face and had her chair falling backward. It clattered, Moira recoiled in pain and she pictured her Dad bursting through the door like a savior.

He was coming. She just had to hold on. He was coming.

She laid on her back and believed.

* * *

The cold air tickled down his back as Leon crossed up the stairs to the airport. He watched, waiting quietly for the man beside a pretty blonde girl to open a taxi door and help her inside. This was what was known in the sex trafficking business as a runner.

He scouted out girls and passed along their information to those who'd collect and secure them. This man was a ferryman on the River Styx. He scouted talent and helped secure them for the trade.

The girl in the taxi laughed and touched his arm as she climbed inside. Just like that - he had a target. The moment the taxi pulled away, the man opened his phone and started texting.

Beside him, Leon mused, "Nice day to play pimp."

Surprised, the man glanced up, and got punched in the face for the effort. He recoiled, Leon kicked him in the groin, and he shoved him into the wall. People scattered, Leon dragged the gagging man into the street and shoved him bodily into a taxi and the driver jerked in surprise as he roared, "DRIVE!"

Nope. Not happening. The taxi driver fled the scene instead. Annoyed, Leon punched the struggling hostage in the side twice, had him crying in pain, and demanded, "Where is Marcus!? WHERE!?"

The man whimpered and the door was jerked open behind Leon, without turning, he kicked backward and connected with his attacker. The man outside the taxi went down on his face, Leon grabbed the runner and started choking and demanded again, "Where is he!?"

He punched the runner in the crotch, the man squealed like a pig, and Leon was summarily jerked from the car. He landed face down, the runner evacuated the taxi and started running like his namesake, and Leon rolled to his back to finish off the man trying to suppress him. They struggled, Leon throat punched him and finished him off with a beautiful hip kick and he was chasing the runner who was heading up the road to the bridge.

Pouring on the speed, Leon watched the desperate man scramble up the side of the bridge. He was going to jump. There was no getting around it. To stop him, Leon grabbed for him in a wide tackle. His hands caught the jacket as the man leaped madly. He dangled, screaming in horror, and Leon spat down at him, "I'll let go, you stupid son of a bitch, start talking!"

The man shouted, wildly, "Gopnik!" The jacket sagged and spilled the man free.

He fell, shouting in horror. He hit the ground beneath the bridge and the echo of it was loud in the cold air. He struggled to his feet, glanced upward triumphantly, and was summarily splattered into oblivion by the car that struck him broadside and turned him into road pizza.

So much for anything else, Leon thought angrily, watching the smears of blood on the road and hearing the horrified shouting below. Gopnik was a street. It was graced by hotels and shops. It narrowed it down, but not enough.

But at least it was somewhere to start.

He left the scene of the crime without a moments regret. Splattered on the road was no less than that bastard deserved. Sometimes, karma knew exactly what it was doing.

It was time to call in another favor.

* * *

Sitting at his desk, Detective Ark Thompson blinked at the man on the other end, "You need me to what?"

Leon groaned lightly as he leaned back in the chair in the hotel room, "I need to know about anything related to trafficking on Gopnik Street in the ESR. Anything."

Ark tapped his fingers on the desk. It was dicey to help out a man like Kennedy. He was never good at staying above board when it suited him. He was a well known wild card.

Hell, he'd sent Ark in years ago to a madhouse of bioterrorism. What happened next? It was still haunting him years later. If Kennedy needed help, there was going to be one ugly price to pay.

Ark sighed with resolution, "...you're looking for an outfit run by a man named Marcus."

Surprised, Leon filled the silence that followed, "...what do you know?"

"I know lots of things," Ark leaned back and shook his head, "I know where this road ends. I'm cautioning you against going down it. What's worth the cost here, Kennedy? Your career is over if you keep this up."

"Career? You think I care about that? If I don't, my _life _is over. Help me."

It was rare that Leon Kennedy asked for help. It was more rare to be able to do it with a clear conscience. Ark blew out a hard breath. "...Blue awning, yellow door...I can't help you again. Eyes are everywhere."

"...I know it. Ark...thank you."

The line disconnected. Ark blew out another breath. He knew the eyes were everywhere regarding what was happening in the ESR. If Kennedy wasn't careful, he'd have worse problems then his daughter being missing. Someone was out to bring him down. It wouldn't stop with Moira.

He figured this story only ended one way and good as he was...even Leon Kennedy couldn't stop a bullet to the brain.

* * *

Moira waited quietly as the door opened. She laid still on the bed remembering her Dad's very first lesson in self defense - _aim for the eyes. _She breathed slow, a hand touched her shoulder to roll her over, and Moira lunged for their face.

They grappled, the girl and the goon there to "inspect her", and Moira drove her thumbs into his waiting sockets. He roared, she kicked him with her bare foot in the groin, and he backhanded her for it. She went to the floor, shaking, vision turning red at one corner. A man shouted, "DON'T HIT HER! YOU'LL DAMAGE HER FACE!"

She sprung off the floor to attack the next man through the door. He caught her and slung her around until she was pinned with her back to his front. Angrily, he told the reeling attacker, "Idiot - check her!"

The man spat, "You kidding? I'm not touching this bitch again!"

The second man scoffed and slung her toward the bed. She turned, kicked him clean in the knee, and got herself shoved face down on the mattress. Screaming with rage, she fought against their hands as they grabbed for her again.

They might take her down, but they'd lose pieces of themselves for trying. They'd drugged her once to get her damn clothes off and stuff her in this room. She'd been placid but present in her body. It was terrifying. She'd heard Jill one night talking to her father about her time in captivity. She knew Jill had survived things she rarely ever spoke of. She knew part of that had been under the influence of some kind of mind control.

Being drugged felt like losing control. She'd be damned if she let them touch her without costing them some fingers. One grabbed for her thighs to spread her legs and she spit in his face. He reared back to slap her and the other one spit, "Not the face! You want her to be worthless!?"

She kicked the second one in the shoulder as he grabbed for her ankles. Annoyed, he shouted, "Get the woman in here!"

Terrified but determined, Moira scrambled back when they let go of her. She shouted at them, "I'll cut your dicks off, you stupid bastards!" There. That sounded brave, right? She was hoping her Dad was somewhere nodding in approval.

A woman in white walked in. She gave Moira a cool look and instructed, "Stop fighting...it's worse when you fight."

Moira spit, "Fuck you, bitch!" Oh, yeah. She was tough alright. She was nearly pissing herself in fear, but trying like hell to hold it together. The woman shrugged and tugged a gun from her back.

"Last chance..."

Moira gave her the finger for the warning. She felt her throat seize in terror as the woman shrugged one delicate shoulder and shot her for the effort. The dart got her right in the breastbone.

Moira went stiff, felt the world slide out of control, and tumbled back onto the bed with it. She couldn't move as they loomed above her. The man jerked her legs open and the woman told them, "I'll check her. Keep your damn hands to yourself. This one...I like the fight in her. I don't want her touched until she's sold."

Moira felt a tear slip from the corner of her eye as she laid there like a broken doll and the woman stuck her hand between her legs to check her for "purity." She wanted to weep with defeat. Her body seized up in pain as the woman declared, "Pure. Set up the auction."

Moira couldn't even close her eyes as they left her legs open like a whore paid well and left defiled. The door closed. She whimpered in her head. She wanted her mother. She wanted her Dad. She wanted her freedom.

She was desperately afraid she'd never see any of them ever again.


End file.
